I have one question about this ad: Do the books come with that chair, or do you have to pay extra? Found at Bad Newspaper.

This statue of a fossilized T. rex stands on the Google “campus,” which is what they cll their office complex. His name is Stan. The Googleplex is also infested with a flock of plastic flamingos, which have ganged up on the dinosaur to pick the bones clean. Stan seems to not mind at all. -via Boing Boing

(Photo: Tzuhsun Hsu)

(Photo: terry39jp2005)

Utoro is a small port town in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. Looking over the harbor are the fearsome Godzilla Rocks, so named for their resemblance to that monster. My question: is Godzilla guarding the town--or waiting for the right moment to crush it?

(Image: Toho)

-via Kuriositas

Glasgow, Scotland is hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which are taking place now. Queen Elizabeth II made a surprise visit to a women's field hockey game between Australia and Malaysia. Australian player Jayde Taylor took a selfie with a teammate. And who slipped into the background? The Queen herself!

Taylor admits that she planned the photo:

“Brooke [Peris] and I planned it so that when she came out the door she would be behind us. And then she came out and smiled at the camera. We were in the right spot at the right time.”

Later, they got to meet the Queen:

“The security guard led us all round and we got to meet her.

“She asked us a bit about the pitch, how we were going and told us to enjoy our time here. She was lovely, really, really lovely.”

-Thanks, Wifey!

How can you not love the logic of scientists? This image is from SciencePorn.

Artist Kurt McRobert drew these lovely archetypes of New York City bicyclists for a Time out New York feature, but one can assume to find most of these kinds of bikers in almost all metropolitan areas. I think he nailed it with the descriptions!

Have you seen one in your city? Or - gasp - are you one of them?

If you love books and maps, then Dorothy Collective (previously on Neatorama) has got the cartographical wonder for you: their Book Map features titles of over 600 books by literature's greatest authors - from Thomas Hardy to Virginia Woolf, and Tolkien to Kurt Vonnegut - in form of a street map in the style of a turn of the century London.

The litho print Book Map features "classics such as Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Bleak House, Vanity Fair and Wuthering Heights as well as 20th and 21st Century works such as The Waste Land, To the Lighthouse, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse 5, The Catcher in the Rye, The Wasp Factory, Norwegian Wood and The Road."

Is your favorite book listed? Peruse some detailed shots of the map below:

Photo: C. Galliani/Wikimedia

Quick, what does the word "Vespa" bring to mind? If you say "cute lil' scooter," you probably haven't seen this image above of the Vespa 150 TAP (for Troupes Aéro Portées), a Vespa scooter modified for use with the French paratroopers in 1956.

It's probably safe to say that this is the deadliest Vespa in the world. The military scooter is powered by a single-cylinder 146 cc two-stroke engine. It sports a M20 75 mm recoilless rifle, US-made light anti-armor cannon, and storage for some ammos. The scooter would be parachute-dropped from airplanes, accompanied by a two-man team who'd scoot along in absolutely menacing style.

Here we have definite proof for you younger folks that George Lucas was once rather skinny, as he enjoys a water pistol fight with Steven Spielberg (left). This snapshot was taken on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1983. Found at This Is Not Porn. -via Weird Vintage

(Image: unknown)

I think that the term for this note is "humblebrag." She knows that she's found an absolute keeper and is acting concerned as a way to show off her man. I can't really blame her.

Dear Perplexed: 

What should you do? Marry him, of course!

          -John

-via Pleated Jeans

P.S. For a while, I've suspected that Neatorama would do well to have an advice column. What do you think?

What? You don't know your progressive house from your deep disco house? What kind of a music lover are you?

But thanks to Every Noise At Once by Glenn McDonald, you no longer have to wonder the difference between "black metal," "pagan black metal," and "dark black metal."

McDonald, who works as "genre taxonomist" over at Echo Nest sure knows his stuff. His website not only displays over a thousand music genres, but you can also explore 30 seconds Spotify clips of music representative of that genre by clicking on the individual link.

McDonald wrote on the website:

This is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 1215 genres by The Echo Nest. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.

For example, clicking on "melodic death metal" plays a tune from that genre. Clicking on the double arrows open another cloud of bands that belong to that genre:

We've told you about the strange baby pears before on Neatorama, but I'm sure some of you haven't seen them before. So let's share in the horror joy of these delicious baby pears, found at a supermarket in Beijing, China.

According to Rocket News 24, these "happy/joyful doll pears" are shaped when growing on trees with special molds to make them look like sleeping human babies.

Better eat 'em before they wake up!

(Photo: Petri Pusa)

The photoblog What The Helsinki?, which documents life in Finland's capital city, reports that this sign is "essential." I approve of the concept, but think that it could go further by permitting porcupines to use the human crosswalk.

-via Marilyn Terrell

(Photo: Chen Boyuan/China.org)

Chen Boyuan of China.org reports that there is now a 22-meter (72 feet) tall inflatable toad in the lake in Yuyuantan Park in Beijing. Boyuan explains that the "Toad of Rejuvenation" is a Chinese cultural symbol that "brings blessings and fortune."

It also reminds visitors of Rubber Duck, a giant sculpture by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. That yellow rubber duck was a huge tourist attraction in 2013.

-via Inventor Spot

Tech workers who produce motherboards sometimes have a little fun, even though the odds are high that their work will never be seen by anyone. Redditor jazzmonster posted a picture of a motherboard and said, “I opened my broken Trace Elliot amp to have a look at the PCB and there was a hidden message printed underneath.” Now, this is no good reason to start tearing your electronic equipment apart, but if you ever need to, check for hidden messages while you’re there.